Mistakes Made & Lessons Learnt

During the course of creating wealth, no one would be spared making mistakes in their investment decision. I truly salute and applaud those who did not make a single mistake when their creating wealth.

I belong to the former. In fact, I made huge and painful mistakes. Mistakes that might or will slow down my journey to finanical freedom. Yes. I lost money in one of the investments and may lose more money in another.

Just over 2 years ago, I invested in Australian premium wine, which I had invested 5 bottles. A year later, the market came crashing down. I wanted to sell my wine but was advised that the value had dropped due to the economic crisis and the Aussie dollar was dropping.

I received a rude shock this year when I found out that the company I purchased and invested the wine in has wound up. I approached other wine investment companies to help me offload my wine but no one seem interested. I did approach a dealer but the price quoted was 70% off what I have paid per bottle.

Now, I am stuck with the wine not knowing how and who to offload to. I did not even know the indicative value of my wine. Still, I am hoping the theory of wine will help me fetch a good price in a year or two.

Next, I bought a land in overseas which would give return of 250% if planning permission is granted in 2-3 years time. I went for their presentation and gone through the brochure the company has given me. I was satisfied with their presentation and hence decided to invest in that land.

Recently I have come across claim from a website that the land will not get any planning permission in the near future. However the company refuted the claim from the website. I also found out that some details which made me very uncomfortable. I am still verifying the details.

Recently, I purchased some products from the same company whereby I will get 12.5% fixed return after 6 months after I choose to surrender. These products had matured upon the 6 months and the company is not paying me. They cited various reasons not to pay up. The payment was due to me went as far as 3 months. I have since engaged my lawyer to deal with the company.

I have learnt some harsh and painful lesson here.

Wine Investment

I know nothing about the company which I invested with. There are many other wine investment companies which I should make a comparsion. My knowledge on wine is shallow. I did not check out on wine investing. I merely read the booklet the company provided me. Most important, I know nil about wine pricing and value - whether the company is quoting me a high price or reasonable price and if the price of the wine match its value.

Land Investment

I did some check on the company and the plot of land I have invested - all through the company website. I have failed to conduct a thorough check on the land I am investing in and assess the credibility of the company online.

Product Investment

Perhaps I greed on the 12.5% fixed return after 6 months. I did not ask / check in detail on how the product investment work.

It is very demoralising to go through these experiences in my journey to wealth creation. Despite the unpleasant experiences, I will not stop investing.

Food for thoughts : Better beware if things are just to good to be true. The banks and financial institutions do not offer such high return in 6 months, so is there a catch when this company come up with such attractive returns?

Rule of Thumb: High risk, high returns, low risk, low return and no risk, no return. As for my case, it seem like high risk ad no return.

I hope that I can recover my monies soon and will be very tactful in my future investments.

Fengshui & Wealth

How many of you people actually believe that Fengshui is closely related to wealth?

Before I started my journey to wealth creation, I do not believe in Fengshui. I would run away from this topic or shun away from people who speak Fengshui to me. To me, believing in Fengshui is like knowing your destiny. It would cost you $$ to undergo a major change if one believe in it.

I see people getting cheated by self proclaimed Fengshui master. I see businesses deteoriated after consulting the master. My dad's business is one good example.

Until recently, I began to see the positive side of Fengshui. It can massively improve one's wealth and success.

I see the vast improvement in their business's cash flow after listening and undergoing changes as advised by the master.

I think, it depends on whether we have engaged the good & experienced fengshui master.

There are successfully people around the world who believe in Fengshui.

Two weeks ago, I engaged a master introduced by one of the people who is closest to me. I was told to undergo minor changes to my house as well as myself in order for money to flow in.

As he explained to me the rationale behind, I find it hard not to believe. Hence I have hired a contractor to do a simple renovation.

Come 2010 will be a better year for me in terms of my wealth and I am really excited in the coming days ahead.

May wealth and health be with me and my family always!!

Dubai Shocker

Just when the world is seeing some sign of recovery, the news from the Middle East sent stocks prices down across Asia.

Investors was seen dumping their stocks and heading for the exit doors. However it is a piece of welcome news for value investors.

Let's see how depressed Mr. Market is when the market opens on Monday.

Who knows there will be more undervalued stocks to be picked up.

Intrinsic Value and Margin of Safety

What makes an retail investor and trader different from value investor?

Retailer investors and traders make investment by looking at price data, candlesticks, various indicators and breaking news, value investors invest by following the rule of Intrinsic Value and Margin of Safety.

Intrinsic Value

It is the discounted value of cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life - Warren Buffet

In other words, it is to see if a business is currently out of favour with the market and is really worth more than its current valuation.

Margin of Safety

This serve as a safety net for value investor to gauage if they want to invest in a company looking at the safety margin. The higher the Margin of Safety, the less risk and more assured we are.

Personally, I find these two pointers very critical and useful. Unlike trading, they look indicators to determine whether to enter or exit. Frankly, these indicators do not mean anything.

That is why I choose to be a value investor !! :)

The Millionaire Investor Program

After 3 days of laughter and intense drilling, I finally graduated from the program. This was surely one of the best decisions I have made in my life.

Many knowledge and values were imparted to the participant. There were no holding back from the trainers. The were simply awesome!!

During these 3 days, I understand more about myself, learning to exercise independent thinking, the importance of stock value more than price and the intrinsic value of a company.

Compare to my trading, value investing made more sense to me. I don't mean to discourage trading but I just feel that trading is purely buying a stock and pray.

YES! I am ready to go "shopping" and look for undervalue stocks.

I am a Millionaire Investor!

Financial Education

Robert Kiyosaki once said "School teaches us to be good employees but it does not teaches us how to be rich." I fully agree with his saying. We attend school for academic education but most people are lacking is financial education. This form of education will truly teaches us wealth creation.

A flip through the Strait Times and one can easily see advertisments on financial education. I attend numerous previews from stock trading, stock investment and forex trading. In the end, I signed up for forex trading as a tool for my wealth creation. As far as I understand, it is the one of the most expensive forex trading programs in the market.

However after trading for a relative short period, I find that it was not what it promise to be during the preview. Perhaps I was attracted by the advertisement "How I quit my $XXX job for forex trading" or "I earn $XXXX in just 2 months".

Forex trading involves looking at different indication or signal like ADX, MACD, RSI, Parabolic Sar etc before you decide to enter or exit. I ended up getting confused signal and often end up losing my trade.

Movement in forex trading is very fast and the feeling is like sitting in a roller coaster. It is certainly not suitable for the fainted hearted. I just wonder how am I able to sleep in peace not knowing what on earth is happening in the West that may impact my position. How to sleep and get rich this way???

Refuse to back down after failure in my trading, I went in search for another tool for my wealth creation . This time I brought my spouse along. After listening to the speaker and seek further clarifications, we signed up for the program. I believe this is more suitable for us as it involve less drama and less stress.

The 3 day program starts this Friday and both me and my wife are excited on our journey to creating wealth.

I am glad we have taken massive action towards financial freedom. This is only the beginning of a long journey.

Why I Want Unlimited Wealth

Eversince my spouse started partime job, our monthly household income greatly reduced to half. If we are lucky, we might be able to save a little otherwise it is deficit each month.

I really feel painful to see my own family struggling financially monthly. I even feel more painful not being able to provide better food for the family especially my children.

Our breakfast consist mostly a loaf of Sunny plain bread. It is only once in a while that I can buy Swiss roll for my children for breakfast. Our best dinning place is either Botak Jones or Picolo once every few months. The furthest my children go for holidays is Malacca. I just feel sorry for my two lovely children.

All this is just too painful for me to bear. I have a very compelling reason to have unlimited wealth. It is true that having a job can't make me rich.

My compelling reasons for unlimited wealth:

1) I want freedom of life, money and time.
2) I want to retire before 50.
3) I want to give my children and wife the best they can get.
4) I want to repay my parent by bringing them for a holiday.
6) I want to repay my in law for their unconditonal help by bringing them for holiday.
7) I want to give back and help the needy people.

The road lies ahead is not going to be easy. Failures, mistake, twist and turns will bound to happen. If road to finanical freedom is easy, then the world will be full of wealthy people.

A Book That Change My Mindset

Early this year, I was introduced to a book by Robert Kiyosaki "Retire Young, Retire Rich". In this book, it teaches us what passive income is and what one can achieve by having finanical freedom. The book also shares with us the different tools to reach the goal and many more valuable teachings.

I began to realise that money can buy happiness. Money can do many wonders. Money is indeed everything. Then again, I also understand the road to finanical freedom is not a bed of roses.

Eversince my family got bankrupt, my dad has been living alone in a rental room and my sisters has been living at other places. My family is totally broken. It really pain me to see my family ended this way.

If my family background pains me, what pain me even more is that I do not earn fantastic income to fulfill my wife's dream of being a homemaker and provide my kids with comfortable life.

When I complete the book, my perception of money is changed completely. Now, I want to have unlimited wealth because I know I can do many wonderful things with money.

Money, please be my friend! Please come to me!

My Blueprint Of Money

Despite seeing my parents declared bankrupt and lost their business, I simply refuse to accept the fact that money is important.

I often come up with some excuses to convince myself I am right. Well, maybe Dad did not have proper money management or maybe of his greed for money. To me, having lots of money is greedy and evil.

There is a saying "Money is the root of evil". I was further proven right when articles about family suing one another for inheritance, business etc appearing in the media.

There was once when I strike a consolation prize in a lottery, my kids began to fell unwell a week later and we need to spend the money to visit a doctor. How ironic! Can't I even have some money to bring my family for a short trip or buy something my kids love? Why must I spend on medical? I was frustrated and angry. It did not occur once but at least thrice when I made a little out of lottery.

From that moment, I said "Enough is enough, I do not want to be rich!! Money cannot bring happiness. Money only bring bad luck! Look what happen to Dad, look what happen to my kids !"

I then shut my mind to be rich and I realised how wrong I am.

A Little Of My Background

I grew up in the environment where my family is being looked down by our relatives. Their parents were educated and their kids were doing well in their academic. As for me, my parents did not even complete their primary education. My results in school were not good either.

My parents constantly reminded me to study hard, get good grade and get a good job in a big company. Unfortunately, I could not even qualify for Polytechnic or College after getting my results. I was deemed a failure from that moment though my Dad did not publicly tell me.

After completing my post secondary education, I got a job. As for my cousins, they went on to University or private institution pursuing their respective degrees. Soon, some became lawyers and one became a doctor while others are working in reputable companies.

I have an uncle who is rich and extremely successfully in his business. However I rarely speak to him nor did I want to socialize with him as he is one of my relatives that “look down” on my family.

Months after getting my first job, I quit. I went on to assist my dad in his small business after my rich uncle persuaded me to lend a helping hand to my dad’s declining business.

During my time assisting my dad, I could see how my rich uncle rejected my dad when he sought his help in his business. Each year passed, I can see how my dad’s business is failing and I am unable to help. My dad also went to approach one of his wealthy friends for some loan but to his effort was turned down. Soon the business failed, my dad had to sell his property and was declared a bankrupt.

My perception of rich people changes from that very moment. To me, rich people are selfish, they are arrogant and heartless. Having money is not everything. Money cannot buy happiness. As long we are contended, it is enough.

There is no reason to be rich. Why must we have so much money when we can’t even bring them into the long wooden box when our soul left us? I have so many negative thoughts about being rich.

Soon I enrolled myself into diploma course and then eventually studied my way to Advanced Diploma. I was proud of my achievement and was ready to find a job and climb the corporate ladder. I want to prove to my relatives I can still get into a reasonable paying job and make my parents proud.